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Hacktacular: The Guardian adapts The Daily Mail’s online strategy

What prompted this headline? One throwaway line uttered as a joke to an interview to another publication: [1]

“I can’t say I love the idea of a banker liking our music, or David Cameron,” the singer told Dazed & Confused. “I can’t believe he’d like [2011’s] King of Limbs much. But I also equally think, who cares? … As long as he doesn’t use it for his election campaigns, I don’t care. I’d sue the living shit out of him if he did.”

I know the discovery of adulterated food, a helicopter crash and a kidnapping in Western Africa mean today is a slow news day, but does this really need to be on the front page?

Sean Michaels has bills to pay I’m sure, but this is a new journalistic low. And is, in case you were wondering, precisely the Daily Mail’s online business model but replicated for a Guardian audience.

Look at it this way. The Daily Mail may have a reputation as a conservative hate rag, but online it is a font of celebrity gossip and paparazzi shots, this has made the Daily Mail the biggest English language newspaper website. The Guardian attempting a similar technique here. But instead of an almost completely fabricated account of Kim Kardashian’s view of the Chipotle restaurant chain, you have a completely misleading story about Radiohead’s view of the coalition. It is the same form but with different content.

It’s quite cute in a way.

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[1] Link works but with http:// replaced with hxxp:// because you shouldn’t reward linkbait with links.